RETRACTED ARTICLE: Design and Synthesis of Gold-Gadolinium-Core-Shell Nanoparticles as Contrast Agent: a Smart Way to Future Nanomaterials for Nanomedicine Applications

Abstract

Aouidat F, Boumati S, Khan M, Tielens F, Doan BT, Spadavecchia J. Int J Nanomedicine. 2019;14:9309–9324.

The Editor and Publisher of International Journal of Nanomedicine wish to retract the published article. The authors raised concerns regarding errors that had been made during the calculation of the size of the nanostructures shown in Figure 2. The sizes reported in the histograms of Figure 2; a1, a2 and a3 were incorrect due to miscalculations that occurred during analysis of the gold core and polymer shells of the spherical nanostructures represented in TEM images of Figure 2A. The authors provided the editor with data from the original study and requested to remove the incorrect histograms and replace them.

However, the Editor determined that this part of the article was integral to the study and the admission of these errors, because of the miscalculation, meant the data was unreliable and would not accept the correction proposed by the authors. The Editor requested for the article to be retracted and the authors were notified but do not agree with this decision.

Our decision-making was informed by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retraction.

The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.

Keywords:

• Gd-gold complex
• theoretical study
• MRI
• relaxivity
• biodistribution